About me in a nutshell. My name is griselle and I'm a 23 yr old girl from Florida. During my last semester in college I put on some weight. Now that I graduated and got engaged I felt it was time to shed those extra college pounds. So I started my diet the last week of September of '06. Since then I've shed about 20lbs and I'm super proud of myself. However, now I've reached a plateau. So I decided to join this forum so I dont do what I did last time I was dieting and hit a plateau, give up. I hope that here I can find the support and motivation that i need and perhaps I also can be of help to others as well.

I really look forward to hearing everyone's stories, and hope to make some new friends here. I wish everyone success.

I wanted to connect with you and say hello because I am also engaged, and hoping to lose some weight before shopping for wedding gowns!

I haven't really decided on a plan for losing the weight yet, although I did recently finish reading the ever popular You on a Diet book. I keep putting off a day for starting, which is why I registered on this site, for some motivation and advice.

Anyhow, I just wanted to congratulate you on your success so far ! Keep up the great work!

Hi Pearl! Is your wedding soon?? I dont have a date yet for mine but we expect it to be in a year from now.
Yeah picking a diet is so hard.. especially with so many out there to choose from. As for me, I decided to losely follow the Weight Watchers diet. I didnt register with them or anything of the sort. I just read up on it and figured out how it works and did it myself. And well, it worked great. It was a bit hard at first, since I wasnt used to eating in small portions, but now i'm pretty used to it. And I say losely because somedays i didnt even count points I just figured i'd eat healthy foods, water, veggies and i should be fine. I also started excersing. Running in particular. Hated it at first. But after a while I started to like it.
Well Pearl keep in touch. And if you ever need help or just someone to talk to feel free to message me or IM me!
Good Luck!

We havent picked a date yet... we're hoping to buy a house before we get married. However, the cost of housing around here is super high, so we're waiting it out and saving up for now!

Question for you, is your fiance also trying to lose weight? Mine is, but I'm having a hard time getting him to really make a commitment to a change in his diet/exercise. If you have any advice on this subject, I'm all ears.

I also did weight watchers (adapted and on my own as well) while I was in senior year of high school and it worked really well for me too. I think I will just try that again and add some things I learned from the You on a Diet book. For example, they say you should try to eat a handful of almonds or walnuts each day. I figure that can't hurt!

I am so glad to have a group of twenty-somethings to talk to who are going through the same things I am!

You sure sound like you have your handsful with son, husband, college and probably work. I am also taking some online courses to try and finish my undergrad degree. I dropped out of a computer engineering program at University of Maryland in my junior year and just went back last year to try and get an undergrad degree in marketing. I think a lot of my weight gain stems from my feelings of failure at not getting my degree when all of my friends did. But, I am trying to work all that out now!

I would love it if you wanted to share some of your weightloss strategies with me. I think I am going to start an adapted weight watchers plan where I track my daily meals/snacks as points. I just finished ready the book You on a Diet and there are some smart ideas in that book that I'm going to try and utilize as well!